THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW, ARGUMENT OF ALONZO T ...
THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW, ARGUMENT OF ALONZO T ...
THE NATIONAL SUNDAY LAW, ARGUMENT OF ALONZO T ...
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National Sunday Law- A.T Jones<br />
England fastened upon the American colonies the Stamp Act. Our fathers<br />
presented unanswerable arguments against it; but the Stamp Act, like Judge Cooley's<br />
Constitutional Sunday laws, was supportable "on authority," and that was enough.<br />
England proposed to enforce it. But our revolutionary fathers refused assent to any such<br />
method of answering unanswerable arguments. So we refuse our assent to Mr. Cooley's<br />
answer to that which he himself pronounces an unanswerable argument.<br />
Senator Blair. -- It does not follow that there is no unanswerable argument in<br />
support of Sunday laws, I take it.<br />
Mr. Jones. -- There is the authority.<br />
Senator Blair. -- There is authority for the Sunday laws. It does not follow<br />
because the Sunday laws are supported by authority that therefore there is no sufficient<br />
argument upon which to base them.<br />
Mr. Jones. -- What authority is there for Sunday laws?<br />
Senator Blair. -- That is what you have been discussing; but you seem to say that<br />
because Sunday laws are supported "by authority," it is the only argument in favor of a<br />
bad law that there is authority for it. But there may be good authority for the Sunday law.<br />
Mr. Jones. -- That is what is shown here, that there is no good authority for it<br />
when it unjustly punishes a man for his belief. There cannot be any good authority<br />
167<br />
for unjustly punishing any man for anything, much less for unjustly punishing him for his<br />
belief.<br />
Senator Blair. -- He does not say it is bad.<br />
Mr. Jones. -- But it is bad. Is there any good answer to an unanswerable<br />
argument?<br />
Now, I propose to find out what authority there is for Sunday laws.<br />
I before referred to the decision of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, and have<br />
shown from a statement of the committee on "law and law reform," of which the<br />
members of the Supreme Court were members, that decision was unconstitutional. I have<br />
shown that the principle upon which their decision rested was that of the omnipotence of<br />
parliament. In this, however, the State of Arkansas only followed the decisions of other<br />
States. In 1858, the Constitution of California said, in Section 4: "The free exercise and
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